Bear Visitor at the Aerie--Again

I was a bit late getting the bird feeders in last evening. Instead of 7:30 or so, It's as more 8:30 when I went out to get them. And that was too late. Something had beaten me to the task. The suet feeder was gone and one of the stick feeders was on the ground with its top off and all the seed gone. The other stick feeder was still on the shepherd's crook, but it was empty also. As was the larger metal feeder hanging on the telephone pole. Since one of the shepherd's hooks was bent, I figured the culprit to be a bear. Again.

Later around 10:30, while Terry and I were watching an early episode of

NCIS

on USA (yeah, it IS addictive), I thought I heard something on the deck and all the cats suddenly went on high alert--i.e. their curiosity got them to stare intently in the direction of the deck with their ears cocked for full reception. I grabbed a flashlight and sure enough, Mr. Bruin had come back to empty the tray feeder on the deck. He wasn't too concerned about the light but, discovering there was nothing in the tray, ambled off the deck and back to the spilled seed on the ground by the feeder station. There, he plopped himself down and started to wish for a full feeder instead of having to sweep up the food from the ground.

He's a decent sized bear. I was able to get an idea of his size as he leaned on the rail of the deck and looked over the side and as he slow walked past the sliding door to go back down to the yard. I would estimate he's about my size and would probably tip the scales at 225-250 pounds. But his snout is still elongated. I thought thin and pointy (more like a German shepherd's) snouts usually indicated a youngish bear. I couldn't be sure, but his coat was either matted with sunflower seeds (or suet) or he had several wounds on his flanks and back. There were distinctly lighter marks smaller than a dime in several locations.

I'll hold the feeders in for a couple of days and let the birds, chipmunks and squirrels act as clean-up crew to get any uneaten seeds off the ground. I'm down to my last bag of sunflower seeds anyway and this might help stretch things out.

So far having Mr. Bruin around is only a nuisance and I would like it to remain that way. I can excuse a few damaged/destroyed bird feeders. I shouldn't be leaving them out over night anyway.